Overheated panelboard

[elmundogrande]

I had a family member call me about his panel after noticing it was warm and called his home warranty to have it checked. Someone came and checked and took the infrared reading see picture and told the homeowner they need to send a electrician. The electrician came and said it was okay and that the breakers can handle 186 degrees with out checking anything else. Any ideas that might be causing the heat other than a loose connection on the “A Phase” since it’s the only side of panel that is getting hot. Panel is in the house west wall insulated wall

 

[synchro]

The picture is not very clear, but it appears that the breakers on the left are AFCIs, GFCIs, or dual function units. And so they have electronics inside of them that generate heat. The right side appears to have regular breakers, mostly 2-pole, and only one of them looks like it may be carrying a significant load. There also seems to be several empty slots on the right.

 

[GeorgeB]

Classic, to me, case of too much knowledge being dangerous. The proliferation of thermal cameras at lower prices and folks not understanding what higher temperatures mean will create more of these. There's the classic when a (VERY NON-TECHNICAL) buddy of mine called when he got that new gadget for his phone. One breaker was "hot", another not so much. This was in January; the water heater breaker was warmer than the air conditioner breaker; who'd of thought?

Thermography is very useful. I find causes of problems in hydraulic systems with it. I find poor insulation in spots of my home with it. But one component in an electrical or electronic device being higher temperature than another PROBABLY does not indicate a problem. Output transistors in an audio amp will usually be "hot" when the volume is high. A 14G wire and its terminations will be warmer carrying 5 amps than 1 amp.

I don't believe there is a single "new" tool who's use is less well understood, even by experts. And don't even bring up home inspectors.

Christmas rant mode off now.

 

[hillbilly1]

The previous company I worked for had a big box customer that had infrared scans done to their panels and gear. Most of the breakers they flagged were loaded to about 60 to 70%, so naturally they were warm. The circuits had not been altered since a lot of these were nearly new stores, engineers just loaded them that way. Thrown in new breakers, walked away. (Buss was not hot, just the breakers). Did find one problem they missed when they did the scan, a 3/0 feeder to a panel was burnt from the fuse bucket, all the way back behind the gear as far as the eye could see! Refused to even touch it without shutting down the gear. As far as I know, the customer is still sitting on repairing it! That was a couple of months ago. Pictures were on my company phone, so unable to post.

 

[elmundogrande]

The picture is not very clear, but it appears that the breakers on the left are AFCIs, GFCIs, or dual function units. And so they have electronics inside of them that generate heat. The right side appears to have regular breakers, mostly 2-pole, and only one of them looks like it may be carrying a significant load. There also seems to be several empty slots on the right.

It never occurred to me the afci /gfci breakers, I use to do yearly thermal reading test on all panels at the hospital I worked

 

[infinity]

Any ideas that might be causing the heat other than a loose connection on the “A Phase” since it’s the only side of panel that is getting hot.

The left side of the panel is not only on the A phase it alternates A,B,A,B etc. As stated under normal conditions AFCI CB's run hot, the electrician was correct. Whoever said send a electrician wasted someones money.

 

[hillbilly1]

When afci’s first came out, there was a lot of nuisance tripping due to heat created by the breakers. At one assisted living center, there was a 42 circuit panel board full of afci’s on every floor. Dead front was almost too hot to touch. Breakers tripping with less than 2 amp loads. Siemens paid us to replace all of them with a new version.

 

[Hv&Lv]

Sounds like a lot of money was wasted here on all parts.

HO on a home warranty company.

Whoever bought the IR camera to take those pictures because the guy interpreting the results doesn’t know what he is doing. I even wonder if those temps are real as the report doesn’t list parameter settings such as distance, humidity, emissivity, atmospheric and reflected temperatures.

the warranty company for calling the electrician. The electrician is the only one that came out on this deal.

 

[kwired]

In a dwelling panel you may seldom find warm breakers other than those supplying some sort of fairly continuous load such as heating, AC, maybe a pool pump etc.

Of course a thermal image like OP has could show one side with slightly more heat than the other and look kind of scary to someone that don't know what they are looking at other than they know one side is warmer.